


One Year Ago Tonight

by SherlockMalfoy



Series: Sherlock!Wizardverse Drabbles - General [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post Reichenbach, Reichenangst, Reichenfeels, Torture, dark!Sherlock, hostage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2012-08-17
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockMalfoy/pseuds/SherlockMalfoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Exactly one year after The Fall, Sherlock finds himself in a dingy motel room and needing to test out his new wand. Fortunately he has a captive would-be assassin tied up and ready to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Year Ago Tonight

The moments tick by.  
       He doesn’t need a clock to know what time it is.  
       He doesn’t need to watch the second hand tick past and the minute hand edge closer.  
       Because all he needs to do is look up at the sky. Look up and know the time by the position of the stars.  
       He almost smiles at that… Almost.  
       If John could see him now, using the stars, using space itself for a practical purpose. He would laugh.  
       But it’s only temporary. He could never again place the solar system and the universe onto the hard disk of his memory. Something more important is affixed to that place in his Mind Palace now. Something that, if he ever deleted even a single piece of data would cause him to crumble.  
       His heart was burning, yes. Blazing in his chest. But so long as it burned, he knew he still had one.  
       He cast a wary eye towards the sky and exhaled another poisonous cloud of smoke from his lungs.  
       Behind him in the dark there’s a groan as the smoke hangs heavy, thick in the air. Looking down he stares at his hands. As the moment fast aproaches, they shake just a little. Just enough to remind him he’s only human. He can hear John’s voice, telling him so.  
       He banishes the phantom back to the Mind Palace. He doesn’t need this right now. He needs calm. He needs empty. He needs alone.  
       Because his friends aren’t here. Not here to protect him. Not here to stop him.  
       The groaning continues, and he rises from his stool by the window.  
       As he crosses the smoke filled room, he puts out his cigarette. His other hand reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the 14 and a half inch length of wood. He holds it aloft. There is no need for it at the moment. It’s out just for show.  
       The moments tick. And they crawl along in the back of his mind.  
       Closer and closer, he can feel the moment coming.  
       The man in the chair watches as the blinds raise up, untouched. He is not surprised by this. He could do the same. Silently he tries to summon his own weapon, his own tool. Failing that he tries to undo his bonds.  
       The dead detective, because that’s what he thinks of himself as now, stood calmly. No longer consulting. The title he had created can no longer apply when one is not actively being consulted on matters. Only… numb. A deadness inside save for the burning in his chest. That reminder of the broken promises he’d made, and those that Moriarty had kept.  
       ”I’ve dosed you with a supressant. One of my last few, actually. No point in taking them myself when the muggle I was hiding this from believes me to be dead.” The light from the lamps outside casts him in an eerie orange glow. “It’s a potion of my own design. Very potent. Unfortunately the main side effect, if any, has been lack of sex drive. In my situation that had been a tick in the positive column….” He glances back at the window. It’s almost time. He can feel it now. That sense of dread, locked in his memory. Locked in the dark room of the Mind Palace that had been slammed shut and chained. “Pity,” he says, stepping closer. Out of the light. “You probably won’t live long enough to bemoan the fact.”  
       He has to be careful. He has to do it just right. He raises the wand. It’s the first time he’s had a chance to use it. He’d just inserted the core when this fool had blundered into his motel room with his wand out. He hadn’t been prepared for muggle weapons. Muggle bullets.  
       No dark wizard ever is.  
       This is the one that had taken the children, he had reminded himself when he’d patched the poor bastard up and tied him to the chair. The one who really started this train wreck. It wasn’t that Moriarty was let off. That was expected. He’d known it was coming. It was the man who’d taken the children.  
       He’d figured it out after he’d taken the last pawn. After he’d faced the first wizard in Moriarty’s employ. This one was a master at glamours. Of course he’d made himself look like Sherlock Holmes when he’d kidnapped them. Framed him.  
       Turned him into… _this_ again.  
       The man’s eyes went wide as he eyed the hastily finished wand. There hadn’t been time to properly test it. To make sure it would, could work.  
       Sherlock ticked off the remaining seconds.  
       Three.  
       He drew in a breath.  
       Two.  
       He held it for just a moment.  
       One.  
        _“Sectumsempra.”_  
       It had become a favorite in his interrogations. When aimed just so… as he had done now, the lascerations pierced only the non-vital parts of the body. Usually. Once unleashed it could not be controlled. But before casting it could be planned and mapped out if aimed properly.  
       A cruel smirk curled at the corners of his lips as he recalled the creator of this particular curse. One of his own namesakes.  
       The man’s mouth opened in a scream… but only managed a groan as the final tick of Sherlock’s mental clock made itself known.  
       At this moment, halfway across the world, one year ago…  
       He made his best friend watch him fall from the roof of St. Bart’s hospital. And that fire in his heart hurt. It burned him from the inside as he willed himself to remain calm. To remain empty… but he wasn’t empty. He could never be truly empty again.  
       Not when he was fueled by pain. Driven by the need for retribution.  
       ”My silencing charms need work… Then again, I’ve fallen out of practice,” he said, surprised that his voice was so cold and even. He muttered the healing counter curse, and watched in fascination as the blood that had pooled around his prisoner had reversed its trail. Sucked up by the body from which it fled so fast and so easily moments before. Watched as the lascerations healed before his very eyes.  
       He looked at his wand. He could feel it vibrating in his hand. Could see the crack begin to form at the tip, threatening to spread further down the wood. He would need to reinforce it somehow… Perhaps his unwanted guest would be more useful to him alive after all… if only while he worked out the kinks.  
       Until then… He summoned his prisoner’s wand to him, wraping his fingers around it and examining it closely. Testing it out with a few harmless spells. Oh yes… this would do nicely in the meantime. “We’ll start,” he said finally. “With how Jim Moriarty, a muggle, managed to get dark wizards to do his bidding.” He moved his hand towards the stool by the window, and it slid quickly over to him. It was getting easier and easier to do as the decades worth of supressants worked their way out of his system. He sat, leaning forward a little in the orange glow of the lights outside. “And then you’ll tell me everything you know of Sebastian Moran.”  
       As the night wore on, and Sherlock worked him over. Time and time again. The night began to leave him. The stars faded into the morning sky. There were some, brighter than others. He couldn’t tell you if they were really stars or planets from our own solar system. Once, before he’d met John, he could have told you everything about them. Anything you wanted or didn’t want to know.  
       But he’d deleted that information from his Mind Palace.  
       And replaced it with his burning heart.


End file.
